Fight for survival,city star future hangs in balance amid nistelrooy quality demand

Recent comments made by Ruud van Nistelrooy could be bad news for one Leicester City player.

Leicester City are set to face off with Brighton and Hove Albion in a 2pm Premier League kick-off on Sunday.

The Foxes are four points clear of the bottom three ahead of the tie but are clear underdogs against the Champions League-chasing Seagulls.

Ahead of the game, Ruud van Nistelrooy held his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon.

The Dutchman discussed a number of interesting topics in his pre-Brighton press conference.

Van Nistelrooy set Jamie Vardy an impossible challenge, while also praising the forward for how he has adapted his game.

Vardy turns 38 next month but continues to excel at the highest level for the Foxes.

Elsewhere, the Dutchman had some very interesting comments on Vardy’s striking teammate, Patson Daka.

What Ruud van Nistelrooy said about Patson Daka before Brighton vs Leicester City

Daka joined Leicester in 2021, signing from RB Salzburg for big money.

His stint at the King Power Stadium so far hasn’t exactly been prolific, with the striker scoring just seven goals in the Championship last season.

Injury issues have since hampered the 26-year-old for the majority of 2024/25 so far.

But he made his return off the bench against Chelsea and then scored in the 3-1 win over West Ham United on Tuesday.

Now, speaking in his pre-Brighton press conference this week, Van Nistelrooy praised Daka’s ‘quality’.

He said: “Exactly what he showed. You saw his quality. Two, actually. Pressing off the ball with intensity and that makes it easier for people behind him to follow up and get into duels.

“But also in the goal he scored, with the pace has. He can time runs behind defences and hurts them.”

Odsonne Edouard fighting for Leicester City future

Van Nistelrooy tried to sign Daka as PSV boss and his recent comments suggest he is a big fan of the player.

While this is good for Leicester and will hopefully see Daka start scoring a lot more, it’s not great for Odsonne Edouard.

Edouard joined the Foxes on a season-long loan from Crystal Palace on deadline day over the summer.

It was clearly something of a panic buy with Leicester in desperate need of a new striker.

However, Edouard is still yet to score a league goal for the Midlands side and now Daka is back fit and seemingly already pleasing Van Nistelrooy, it’s hard to see where the Palace man fits in going forward.

Leicester can make signings in January and as their two Premier League loan spots are already taken up by Edouard and in-form Facundo Buonanotte, it now makes sense for the former to have his loan deal terminated as Daka can be backup to Vardy.

This would allow Leicester to bring another Premier League star in on loan in January to fix other areas of their squad, such as full-back or centre-back